The Last Crossing, page 13
“I think you will never be a great painter until you surrender to love,” was all my brother said, and that was enough.
Nothing more of Oronhyatekha was ever mentioned, but I refused to return to Oxford without Simon. Two years at university was sufficient buffing and polishing for me, and twenty years would never have been long enough to put a shine on Simon.
Today, riding back to Fort Benton with Mr. Straw and Addington from the half-breed’s squalid camp, I pondered on a remarkable coincidence. Jerry Potts and the drunken savage that I saw howling and beating the road with a barrel stave are one and the same man. However, I am beyond second thoughts, eagerness to be underway suppresses them.
I said nothing of this to Addington, who was too intent on impressing Mr. Straw with how soundly he had planned our pending operations to look kindly on any interruption from me. My brother was explaining to Mr. Straw how his military experience had taught him that ample stores and suitable transport are of paramount importance. “I set that Potts fellow straight, Mr. Straw, about the necessity of wagons, didn’t I? What did the half-breed say? ‘I don’t like wagons. Wagons are not good when the time comes to run away from enemies.’ ”
Running away. What my dear twin has done. Run from Father. Fled me.
Forgive me, Simon.
12
Two horsemen lead the line of march. Captain Addington Gaunt, proud as a Cossack, towers on a sorrel blood-horse while Jerry Potts slouches on a piebald, hammer-headed mustang. Two wagons following, each carrying a passenger and hired teamster, Charles Gaunt beside Grunewald, Mr. Ayto next to Barker, spare horses tethered to the tailgates of the Conestogas. The little town of Fort Benton grows smaller below as the procession makes a long, clamorous climb out of the river valley of the Missouri, wagons juddering along the pot-holed freight trail. Axles shrieking, the chirp and squeal of wagon boards sawing against one another, the tintinnabulation of enamel-ware clanking in the back, drivers shouting, “Hyup! Hyup!” slapping reins to teams surging in their collars up the arid, canvas-coloured hill, the blue sky lurching above them, flapping like a matador’s cape, teasing them to charge forward.
Finally, they roll over the crest, pause to give the tired horses a blow. Ahead, the plain topples north, breakers of grass pitching in the wind, buffalo wallows filled by last night’s rain glinting like new dimes in the sun, little smudges of whorled cloud, fingerprints on a windowpane. Far off, tiny antelope – scurrying ants. Above, hawks sailing the updrafts – flakes of ash.
Addington Gaunt twists around in the saddle to see the last member of the expedition clear the ridge. Lucy Stoveall, trudging with her head down, a gunny sack slung over her shoulder holding all her gear, two linsey woolsey dresses, a bone comb, her sister’s daguerrotype, a bar of lye soap, and the Navy Colt.
They move off.
ALOYSIUS Just my good fortune: heading down to the levee to make sure them roustabouts didn’t pilfer one of my kegs of beer off the steamboat, I saw Lucy Stoveall pleading with the English. It falls to me to break the bad tidings to Straw.
Rode back with my shipment on the freight wagon, unlocked the saloon so the men could unload, and I discover Straw already in his spot by the window, a glass in hand. Whisky at eleven in the morning on a empty stomach, couldn’t wait for me to open up, served himself.
I eased into what I had to say. “I seen the English setting out this morning,” I told him.
“They aren’t going to find anything,” Custis remarked. “I didn’t have the heart to tell Charles Gaunt that. And I didn’t bother to waste an opinion on the Captain. I had two hours of his company visiting Potts. Addington Gaunt taught me that after a stint in the British army, a man knows everything there is to know.”
“The whole troop of them was gathered in Front Street, extra horses, wagons bulging with provisions. They looked to go to China and back.”
“Well,” said Custis, “the Captain seems to be a man who likes to do things in a superior style.”
“Mrs. Stoveall was there.” He didn’t catch what I was leading up to.
“Maybe she likes hoopla as much as you do, Aloysius.”
I said, “I seen her asking them to let her work her way, cook and scrub for them. Said she could make a firebread light as angel food. Just give her a chance, take her along.”
That got his attention. “What?” he snarled.
“Lord, I could scarce believe my eyes, but she dropped down on her knees in the dust and horseshit and begged them. Held up her hands like this” – I stretched out my arms and crooked my fingers pitiful so he could see how Lucy Stoveall had acted – “said she’d lost her sister recent, was bereaved without a soul in the world to lean on. Said her husband was up north and she was desperate to find him. Please to lend her a helping hand.”
“I don’t believe it,” Custis said. “Lucy Stoveall isn’t a woman to pull that sort of monkey business.” That’s what he claimed, but he looked doubtful nonetheless.
I went on. “And when she was done beseeching, the Captain swung down off his handsome horse, and he took her by the hand, and he lifted her up from her knees and he says, ‘Madame, an officer and a gentleman cannot refuse to comfort a lady in distress. It would give me the greatest pleasure to see you safely into the arms of your husband.’ And that’s how she got aid and succour from the English.” I let Custis take it in for a moment. “They left four hours ago.”
He let fly at me. “Goddamn it, Dooley, why didn’t you come tell me!”
“Because I had to guard my goods from them light-fingered dock thieves. And why am I obliged to report every little matter to you, lickety-split?”
Custis sat thinking for a time, sliding his glass backwards and forwards on the tabletop. Finally, he said, “When I went out to Jerry Potts’s camp with the Englishmen, Potts told them if they didn’t find the corpse of their brother at the Whitemud River, they ought to turn for the whisky posts in Whoop-Up country. Maybe they could learn something about him there. Captain Gaunt has likely blabbed their plans in every saloon in town. Mrs. Stoveall must have got wind of it somehow. I reckon she’s figuring that if Abner Stoveall has sold his store of whisky, he’ll have to rely on one of the posts to replenish it. She must hope to find her husband at one of them.”
I didn’t say yea or nay to Custis’s speculations. He was in no mood for any more words from me. He glanced up and said, “Aloysius, I am disappointed in you. You should have stopped her.”
“Well, I didn’t because it ain’t none of my business what Lucy Stoveall chooses to do, nor yours neither.”
Custis got to his feet, scowled at me, took the bottle, and charged off to his room. I could see he was suffering mightily from my bulletin. He is like that, oftentimes afflicted with sudden gloom.
Hard on the heels of his leaving, a swarm of bullwhackers back from a haul to Helena trooped in so I didn’t have the time to spare to coax and jolly Custis out of the mopes. Ox drivers and mule men are fine customers; eating dust from dawn till dark is parching work. They was pleasant, tolerably well-behaved fellows except for one knothead who wouldn’t trouble himself to go outside and piss, but used a cuspidor to relieve himself. I got to get me a dog for that. A fellow sees some hound ready to be sicked on his peeder, he’ll quit sprinkling in the spittoons.
About midnight the bull-train boss came in swinging a ox goad and drove the diehards out. He wanted them sober because they’re hauling blast powder tomorrow. A welcome sight he was, as Custis was on my mind. Soon as the boss rousted them, I blew out the lights and barred the door in case any escaped him and doubled back for one last drink.
Then I give Custis’s predicament a think. With that Stoveall woman gone he is better off, no matter how dismal it makes him. Entertaining such disorderly, passionate feelings at his time of life is unbecoming in a man. He ought to know better. A middle-aged man with quim, with cunny on the brain, is a pitiful sight to behold.
My old Da said to me once, “Aloysius, God gave you a eejit’s face. Put it to your advantage. Hide behind it and ambush people.” Well, it rests on Aloysius Dooley’s shoulders to point out to Custis Straw Esquire the consequences of pining after another man’s wife.
Custis’s always more welcoming if you approach with whisky, so I gather a bottle, tuck two shot glasses in my coat pockets, and step outside. Jew Jake weren’t fortunate in the carpenter he hired to build the Stubhorn. He told me the fellow didn’t leave no room for a indoor staircase so he just run one up the side of the building. I reckon that’s how things get done in Fort Benton, and you got to learn to live with what you’re handed. That’s Straw’s problem. He won’t learn that simple lesson.
His room still shows a light. Going up the stairs I tramp them hard to give him warning, but when I knock at his door, he don’t answer. Could be he’s dead drunk, or ploughed under on laudanum or opium. I don’t no more approve of dirty, foreign habits like opium smoking than I do chasing a skirt that’s spoken for. I rap again, no answer, so I just let myself in.
Custis’s sprawled out on the bed, nightshirt rucked up above his knees, sweat on a furrowed face like a woman in the throes of labour. Tragic, Dr. Bengough would say. Custis don’t hand me so much as a glance. “Long day – thought we’d close it with a tot,” I say, holding up the bottle.
Custis answers back sharp, “I don’t want whisky. Nor company neither.”
I drag a cane-bottomed chair over to the bed, settle myself, fill our glasses. Custis takes the one I hand him, but he don’t taste it, just holds it propped on his chest. I see the bottle he carried to the room lying on the floor empty, but I suspect that went down his throat hours ago, so he’s had space to sober up.
“Lucy Stoveall took a vow,” I say. “The moment she promised ‘I do,’ that’s all she wrote. You’re too late on the scene, Custis. Forget this nonsense. And if you ain’t noticed, she’s wilful besides.”
“I like a wilful woman.”
“Wilful women need leeway. She ain’t going to get it with you. You’re wilful yourself.”
“Furthest thing from it.”
“I admit Lucy Stoveall’s got her points of interest. She’s a looker.” I’m hoping to mollify him by complimenting her.
Straw takes his first drink. “I noticed you noticing, Aloysius. After the funeral you buzzed around her like a fly around the sugar bowl.”
“Maybe, but I know better than to settle in it and try to help myself to that sweetness. You got to forget certain things. Soon as you do, you’ll brighten some.”
“How am I supposed to forget this?” And he reaches under the bed covers and pulls out that dirty black belt, dangles it before my eyes.
“Custis Straw, you get more peculiar every day. Whyever are you cuddling up to that loathsome thing?”
His eyes narrow. “Tell the truth. You sure you never saw anybody wearing this in the Stubhorn?”
“Goddamn it, Custis, I told you no. I don’t let my eyes go that low on customers. I don’t want them wondering if I’m staring at what I oughtn’t to be.”
Custis lets the belt drop to the floor. “Lucy Stoveall and I have this in common,” he says, “neither of us can put her sister’s death out of mind. I understand her. Not knowing who murdered her sister is oppressing her spirits. She might rest easier if she knew who the culprit was.”
I leave that alone.
“I’ve tried almighty hard to change myself,” Custis says. “I tinker with the particulars of my life, but I don’t seem to make much headway. You think that’s a thing a man can do, Aloysius – change himself?”
Custis is veering about tonight. As far as I can see, one thing don’t follow another. “I got no opinion on that. I never attempted it.”
“It’s why I enlisted during the war. A man needs to serve something bigger than himself. It enlarges him.” Custis ponders for a moment. “It’s my nature to keep my distance. But when I favour someone, I don’t change my mind.”
“No, I did change once, I remember now,” I offer. “I used to gamble, but I give it up.”
“That isn’t a change of nature. You love money, Aloysius. You figured gambling was a way of getting your hands on more of it. But it was a losing proposition – that’s why you swore off it.”
“Well, when I was a little babby I hated peas. I can eat them now.”
“A dog can learn to eat peas. The question is bigger than peas. I thought on it all day. Keeping my distance is the sensible thing to do, but I’m going after Lucy Stoveall. I intend to persuade her to come back to Fort Benton with me.”
“And what if she don’t persuade?”
“It’s a dangerous business for a woman out there, shepherded by English bumblers. I’ll make her come. For her own good.” Saying this, Custis’s face changes in a way I never seen before. I’m glad Justice Daniels never saw him staring so fearsome. A jury might convict a man on the evidence of that look alone.
“I’d think twice about it if I was you. All you done since you quit the Indian trade is sit on your arse and eat fat pork. Could be you’ve gone too soft for rescuing women.”
“We’ll see.”
My temper rises. “Everybody chasing after everybody else. Those Englishmen chasing their brother. Lucy Stoveall chasing her husband. You after Lucy Stoveall. A game of fox and hounds.”
“It isn’t a game,” says Straw. “Not to me.”
I can see he ain’t about to be talked out of his nonsense. I set the whisky on the floor in easy reach of his bed. “I think you ought to suckle down this bottle. Maybe then when you wake up, you’ll have forgot this damn lunatic notion.” It’s late and I’ve had enough of Custis Straw. I’m a working man, not a freebooting horse trader. I need my rest. I got glasses to wash and floors to sweep come morning. I make for the door.
“I won’t forget,” says Custis.
That halts me, hand on the doorknob. “Those times you tried to change, Custis. What were you aiming to be?”
“I wanted to be better,” he says. “That’s all. Just a better man who aimed himself a little higher.”
I leave him with the last word, which is how things generally fall out between us, but I slam the door hard so he knows I ain’t happy about it.
CUSTIS After Aloysius’s meddling visit I didn’t touch the gift of whisky nor did I sleep either. I thought about Lucy Stoveall’s grief and the cause of it, the belt laying on the floor beside my bed. I watched the dawn creep into my window and let it light my mind. The Gaunts will have a two-day start before I’ve cleared my affairs here, but wagons travel slow. Besides, I know their first destination is the Whitemud River, where the bones of the English preacher were found. No trouble overtaking them.
Daniel Thibault will keep an eye on my horses until I get back. All the fifty-cent pieces I’ve handed that old bum, he owes me a favour. Aloysius won’t approve. I can hear him now, “It’s just like you, Straw, hiring the first one-eye, seventy-year-old Frenchie half-breed you can find. All his relatives are known horse thieves. I hope you took that into account.”
Coming to a firm decision is a heartening thing. Roll the dice, take the consequences. I wash and shave, brush my best broadcloth suit, take my St. Louis hat out of its box. A new hat fit for a new outlook. Something special shipped from the finest haberdashery emporium they got down there. A black silk bowler. After a few attempts, I discover the right angle for it in the mirror and head off to the livery.
I need a mount to bring Mrs. Stoveall back to Benton, and all the horses out at my place are rough stock, not fit for ladies. It tickles me to see D. C. Harding, proprietor, mucking out stalls. He’s been short on help ever since that enterprising blackamoor, Pompey, stole off with Abner Stoveall to make a fortune in the Queen’s country. Harding’s a cautious, haggling soul, but I don’t have the patience for it this morning. I know what I want and I’ll have it – a quiet Morgan mare that I’ve seen one of Mule Jenny’s whores ride when she takes the air. It costs me five hundred dollars, but I get D. C. to throw in a bridle and a second-hand saddle to boot. He frowns, but that’s for appearance’s sake. D. C. knows well enough my impatience has skinned me.
A little after eight, I see Danny Howard unlocking his General Merchandise, and I cross the street. I’m the first customer of the day. By the time I’m done shopping, I’ve bought a hunting knife, a hatchet, hardtack, jerked beef, one cured buffalo ham, salt, sugar, coffee, matches, blankets, a duster, a ground sheet, wool stockings, four flannel shirts, and a pea jacket. The cash I’ve dropped in his establishment, he makes no fuss when I tell him I want my supplies delivered to the Stubhorn.
Last call is the gunsmith’s. Karl Hofstedder doesn’t look up when the cowbell hung above the door clangs. He’s working on a Remington percussion revolver, converting it for cartridge loads, busy fitting a recoil plate into the pistol frame. I appreciate a man who does a tidy job, and the German is tidy to an extreme. He doesn’t favour me with his attention until he’s finished the chore at hand, lays his tools aside, pushes his glasses up on his forehead, and says, “Ja?”
“That’s a nice job,” I say. “Who’s the pistol for?”
“Nobodies. I fix him to sell.”
“I’ll take it off your hands if you can finish it today.”
“Sure,” says Hofstedder. “Nothing to do but fit him the cylinder.”
I pick out a flapped holster for the revolver and a Henry repeater. But I give most care to choosing a buffalo gun. Last night Aloysius suggested I’d gone soft riding a chair, and that’s got the ring of truth to it because I sure as hell don’t intend to run buffalo to put meat in my larder. Plunging into a badger hole at a gallop is too risky for a man of my age. I’ll do my hunting afoot, thank you, and for that I’ll need a weapon with more range and wallop than a Henry.
